In today’s world, the competition for attention is maddening. Data, products, brands, and media are thrown at us at the speed of light, making it extremely difficult to grab the already limited attention of people.
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What has helped me gain attention is finding my niche. A niche sets you apart from others and can establish a specialized market audience. Let’s look at three definitions of the word niche:
1) A specialized market segment for a particular product or service.
2) The situation in which a business’s products or services can succeed by being sold to a particular kind or group of people.
3) A final alternate, technical definition of niche is an environment containing everything a particular plant or animal needs to live, thus fulfilling an environmental or ecological niche.
Definition #3 is the true beauty in finding my niche. Why? Because I’m an artist writing a blog about my artistic niche and participating in an artistic environment with all the elements I need for life—creativity, music, art, family, friends, and health. I gain everything through this environment as part of the artistic species, defining my niche on the belief I’m unique because of how I create.
How I found my artistic niche occurred in the most perfect, organic way possible to reinforce the essence of what Jelly represents: letting go of control. The concept, art, techniques, and momentum of Jelly came during one of the darkest phases of my life when I least expected it.
It was 2013. I was an unemployed single father wrestling with self-doubt (personal and career-wise), self-criticism, and significant depression. I was writing and playing music at the time, yet music wasn’t filling my soul then. It was odd because music had always provided me with peace and creativity. I still felt the urge to find a new form of self-expression and creativity. This new form of expression needed to be visual, abstract, and fluid. Little did I know what it would become.
During such a dark period in my life, I didn’t realize how art and music would become my creative refuge.
During a nasty blizzard that winter, my kids were at their mom’s home, and I found myself snowed in at home for almost a week. Rather than let my days and nights run together wasting time, I decided to make the best of it by experimenting with paints. Out of boredom, I dug out some paint, canvas boards, and canvas from the basement. I moved my living room furniture out of the way, laid out a giant tarp, and set up a paint playground where I played for four days. I became fascinated with the fluidity of mixing acrylic paint with various mediums. The way gravity and angles allowed me to “shape” the painting.
After numerous hours of creating, I placed several pieces on the floor to cure while I took a break to play my electric guitar. As I played, I looked at the pieces drying and noticed the paint vibrating and moving as my guitar dictated its motion and shape. Curious, I laid down my guitar amp and placed the canvas on the top of the speaker cabinet. I began experimenting with different sound sources and frequencies, where I observed and learned how physics variances changed the paint’s behavior. The canvas acted like a drumhead, with different frequencies moving the paint differently depending on the amount of air and movement. As I played, I was in awe of what was happening; essentially, I had merged two of my passions, art and music, into one creative outlet! Who would have known that a nature-forced four-day isolation would allow me to find my niche?
As I traverse life, I believe the more you focus energy and time wondering, worrying, or trying to make things happen the slower progress seems to take. The beauty of finding my niche is that I wasn’t searching for it; rather, it goes back to Jelly’s foundation: letting go of control.
With that said, stay safe, well, and creative!
Peace,
Jelly
